Ukrainian Man Sentenced in Hacking Case

Monday, February 20, 2017 @ 03:02 PM gHale

A Ukrainian man who attempted to get revenge on a security blogger for exposing him got 41 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to more than $83,000 in restitution, officials said.

Sergey Vovnenko, 31, also known as “Sergey Vovnencko,” “Tomas Rimkis,” “Flycracker,” “Flyck,” “Fly,” “Centurion,” “MUXACC1,” “Stranier” and “Darklife.” He ended up arrested in Italy in June 2014, where he spent the next 15 months trying to fight his extradition to the United States.

In January 2016, after extradition to the U.S., Vovnenko admitted stealing login credentials and payment card data as part of an international hacking conspiracy, and pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft.

Vovnenko was an administrator on two cybercrime forums, officials said. Between September 2010 and August 2012, he and his co-conspirators infected at least 13,000 computers with the Zeus banking Trojan in order to steal valuable information.

This all started when investigative journalist Brian Krebs started monitoring Vovnenko in 2013, and he soon managed to find his real identity. In an effort to get revenge on Krebs, the Ukrainian had requested donations from other fraudsters to purchase heroin from Silk Road and have it delivered to the blogger.

The plan was to spoof a call from one of Krebs’ neighbors to local police and get him arrested for drug possession. However, the journalist had infiltrated Vovnenko’s forum and alerted the police before the drugs arrived.

Krebs said the hacker’s “antics” likely contributed to his arrest and guilty plea. The blogger said Vovnenko apparently turned his life around while in prison in Italy.

Vovnenko is not the only hacker who targeted Krebs and sentenced last week. Eric Taylor, known online as UG Nazi member “Cosmo the God,” ended up sentenced to three years probation for running Exposed.su, a website leaked private information on several high-profile individuals.